Invited a Member for Baptism! :)

Hail Storm

I'll start this letter right off by answering questions. I'm doing good. And no it doesn't seem like Dr. Koffords treatments worked too well...It's cool to hear about that other doctor. I'll definately have to try him out when I get back. The reaction wasn't too bad or too mild. Pretty normal. I had some pretty bad stomach pain for about 30 minutes and then it went away. About the new retainer....I didn't get one put in. The orthodologist said that I didn't need one after having one in for 6 years straight. Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but I'll never know if I don't try. They also filled in a little cavity that I had. Nooooo!!!! My first cavity ='(.....oh well. So they took off the retainer and filled a cavity all for......$20.00. Yup, super cheap. Awesome for a missionary =). And yes I got the package. I told you about a month ago that I got it lol. And yes, I like the cold weather here better than the hot humid weather in El Carmen. And thanks for sending me pictures of Dwight and his now wife. He was pretty crazy to get married lol. I hope he's calmed down a bit.  Okay now the part that pertains to you all. The part about ME =). Lol. Just kidding.  Remember how I said that last sunday a bunch of people came to church? Yeah. Well one of them is a member who has been inactive for 25 years. Ever since her baptism when she was 8. And all the other ones don't live in our sector....So we got left with only one new investigator. Her name is Caroline Lalama for the May 11. She's the daughter of the member that was inactive for 25 years but finally decided to come back to church. Caroline and her mom are super awesome. They're really excited to be back in the church as well. We didn't have any baptisms this week either.

This week was alright. We found a lot of new people that want to hear us (5 new investigators). 2 of the new people actually contacted us. We were going to go to a merienda appointment but she called us and said that she couldn't give us merienda but would pay a restaurant and we could eat there. So we went and ate there. We were eating and my companion Elder Ramos finished eating and then not to waste time waiting for me he pulled out his Book of Mormon. One of the other people in the restaurant took notice and asked him if it was the Bible. He told them that it was a Book of Mormon and that we were missionaries. The man pulled up a chair and sat at our table and started telling us about his life. That it's full of problems and he doesn't know what to do. He also told us that he had never talked to any missionary before but for some reason he talked to us. It was a pretty cool experience. I know that God put us there at that time and that that man was prompted to come and talk to us. Good experience. The next day we taught him and his wife the Plan of Salvation and then invited them to church. They said that they would come, but for some reason they didn't....we're going to follow up with them this week. 

We do have quite a few other people that we want to put baptismal dates on, but this week a lot of visits fell through. All of our investigators had really good excuses why we couldn't visit them at that moment. I guess things like that happen in the mission sometimes...Really that is our biggest challenge here in San Carlos. Fallen visits...not a whole lot we can do about that but we're working hard to find new people. Working lots with the members to try and get references. 

As for me and my companion, we're doing great. We get along well and everything. Working steadily and improving as usual. 

Funny thing of the week: Probably when we went to that lady's house that had been inactive for 25 years. We got there all ready to teach her and then invite her to baptism and when we were talking to her she said that she was baptized when she was 8........We were all quiet and didn't know what to do lol. She really caught us by surprise.

Pics: It was hailing here. Take a look =). And the other one is a picture of Quito from where we were contacting this week. That mountain in the backround isn't a mountain. It's a volcano. Basically just an awesome view. A picture at day and at night

too lazy to write anything else, 

Elder Black

Elder Black and 3 Companions! 

This scorpion walked across the floor while teaching a lesson

This is going to be short. I ate a cookie that had pecans in it so I took some allergy pills and now I'm super tired and lazy....I'm just going to say the highlights of this week. This week we got a new companion on tuesday and E'Logroño went to Mexico. He was one of my companions and was waiting for his Visa. He left thursday in the middle of the night. So for 2 days I was technically training 3 missionaries at once...But then E'Logroño left and then the other missionary left as well. He was just here for a couple of days for emergency changes. It was pretty hard trying to coordinate a lesson between 4 people. Ugh....so tired....Okay. Also this week we found a few new investigators and got some awesome references. We found someone while contacting that has family that is member. She was pretty cool and we have an appointment set up for tomorrow. Hopefully all goes well with that. We also had 6 new people go to church today. They were all references that members had invited to church. Sweet, a bunch of new investigators. 4 of the 6 belong to another sector, but we still got 2 awesome new people out of it. 

Yes dad I got all the pictures you sent last week. Also, I sent something awesome home for Mother's Day. Don't open it early. You have to wait =). The people here don't have maids, being District Leader rocks, we have mamitas everyday and I have an appointment with a doctor tomorrow to get my retainer taken out and have a new one put in. It's so awesome to hear that Brionna is going to serve a mission. I would have never thought....give her and Jessie my congratulations =). Oh, and Kent as well. And if you could could you send me some pictures of Dwight, Jeff and their wives/future wives?

Now, the funny thing of the week....Elder Ramos(my companion) and I had bought some black gloves so our hands wouldn't get cold here. After that we went to pick up our laundry that a member had washed. So, 2 young men holding laundry bags, and using black gloves....We got some pretty funny reactions from the people lol. The people here are pretty suspicious and you have to gain their trust. We took our clothes to the house of a member and their neighbor saw us with our bags and gloves knocking on doors. He gave us a really weird look and then closed his front door. A bunch of people thought we were robbers or something. It was pretty awesome =)

The picture of the 4 people is me and my 4 companions. The scorpion walked across the floor while we were teaching a lesson. And the other one is of a bridge while were contacting =)

Going to close now before I fall asleep on the computer.....

Elder Black

Elder Ramos, Elder Logrono and Elder Black

Painted by a member of the Ward

Hello,

This letter is going to be short. Not a whole lot happened....To start off I'll tell you about my companions. First off is Elder Ramos. He's from El Salvador and has 2 months in the mission. He's a direct person who is pretty intellectual and relys on thinking. He knows how to teach the lessons and is overall a good missionary. He likes soccer, Spongebob and anime =). Next up is Elder Logroño. He's from Ecuador and is waiting for his Visa to Mexico. He's got a month and a half in the mission and is a really nice guy.  The only thing is that he has a hard time focusing. Sometimes he gets off track in the lessons. We were teaching about repentance one time and he started talking about the gathering of Israel. But when his thoughts are focused he's good. He's a nice guy who cares about the people. And I'm training both of them =).

So those are my companions for you. Now the investigators.....we hardly have any lol. Well it's understandable. Here in Quito, the city, the people are a bit more closed off and a lot of them live in houses with walls and intercoms or in apartments. In other words, it's a bit hard to find people. We did have some good success in a park this week though. The people are sitting down and can't run away and they're usually there with their family or kids. Perfect. We got a few good contacts out of that =). We went to the house of a contact that my companions contacted before I got here. Apparently she lived in Utah for awhile with some family who are members. We taught her the Restoration and she was really receptive. We invited her to baptism and she accepted, but she didn't accept a date. Oh well, that's fine with me. She has the desires and everything, she just needs a bit of time. We do have a few more people that we're teaching but only 2 have baptismal dates. Carmen and Ricardo, her son. Carmen is about 45 years old and is dating a member of the ward here. She's keeping commitments and is assisting. Her baptismal date for the 27th is holding strong. Along with Ricardo's. Other than them we don't have anyone else with a baptismal date. We do have a bunch of people that we want to put a baptismal date on, we just need to be able to find them in their house. We had a lot of fallen visits this week so that made things kind of hard.

Also this week I had my first baptismal interviews. At first I was a little nervous about it, but I studied it up in Preach My Gospel and I think I did a pretty decent job. I ended up doing 2 this week. I liked the second one the best. I interviewed a 9 year old named Joel. His mom isn't a member but he's an awesome little kid. I really felt of his spirit during the interview. An awesome experience for me and hopefully for him too. 

Well....that's pretty much it. Not a whole lot happened this week. We're going to really try to find more people to teach and all that good stuff.

To answer a few questions. My responsibilites as DL are these; all the missionaries in the district (2) call me every night and give me report of their day, then I call the Zone Leaders and give them the reports; I do the baptismal interviews of the investigators of the other missionaries in my district; I give a training of about 45 minutes every district meeting (thursdays); me and my sector have to be examples for the district and that's all I can think of for now. Nope I am not suffering in Yaruquì. In a different house and in a different sector.

That's all for now, 

Elder Black

Changes

Going to be a short letter, don't have too much time. First off I'll reply to the email. Yes we watched all the sessions of conference, have to check my notes to see which I liked best, no baptisms, yes I got changed. I'm back in Zona Quito where I started. I'm a District Leader and I'm in a trio with 2 new misisonaries. I'll be training both. One of them is waiting for his visa and should be leaving to Mexico in a week. But we'll see. Also looks like you guys had an awesome time in Florida. And I'm glad that you now appreciate how cool I am now that I'm not there =). 

My last companion, Elder Lopez is now training at 4 months in the mission. Not much time =) And not much happened in last week. Lots of fallen visits. Although we did have one cool contact. There's this drink here called Polaca. It's a sweet drink that's basically egg-nog for an Ecuadorian. There are always guys in the streets selling Polaca and they wear Polaca hats. Of course I wanted one. So we went to a nearby Polaca factory (it's a little room or 2 where they make it) and asked a lady there how I could get a hat. She told us that she would give us 2 for free.....sweet =). We went back a few days later and she gave us a free glass of Polaca and then we went across the street to her house to get the hats, Also for free =). We talked with her for a little bit and she told us that she would like to start taking the lessons. Yeah! Polaca, a hat and a contact all at once. Now that's effective

I would now like to take a few minutes to write a list of all the weird food that I've eaten in Ecuador. Prepare your stomaches.

-Cow hoof

-Bull testicles

-Cow stomach

-Cow liver

-Chicken liver

-Chicken feet

-Guinea Pig

-probably some other stuff. 

Yum....the only thing I can't eat is the cow stomach. I almost threw up when I ate it. Not for the taste, but for the texture. Pretty much like a tongue brusher. Now everytime I brush my tongue I think of cow stomach

Now I have some questions. What's up with the war with Korea!? I don't know anything about it....Dad, you still need to re-send me that email of the water filtration system and Katarina's talk. I didn't get all of it. Also I would like to thank everyone who sent me a letter for my birthday. Especially Grandma and Cabby. Thanks =)

And I would like the emails of Andrew, Ryan, Kyle and Bruce. If there's a way you could find out so I could write them that would be great. 

Funny thing of the week: this is a a good one. We were waiting in the church to have a lesson with some of our investigators and they didn't come....Inside of the church there was a motorcycle of the first councellor in our ward....perfect opportunity for a prank =). We hid his motorcycle in one of the class rooms and closed all the doors so that he would have to look in all the classrooms to find it. In place of his motorcycle we put a note that said, "The motorcycle? It's in room 11". Then in room 11 another note that told him that it was in another room. Then after about 3 or 4 rooms we finally told him where his motorcycle was. Ha! I bet he was really surprised to find out that his motorcycle wasn't there when he got to the church. 

The last thing. This is for you Katarina. lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, lol, loooooool. 

That's all for now. I'll let you know latter how things are going here as district leader, and trainer in my first zone =)

Elder Black

Baptisms!

Familia Barreto gets baptized.

What is this leaf package?

Realized there is food inside!

Yo,

This week was both good and bad at the same time. I'll explain that later, but here's the good first. This week we had 5 baptisms. Family Barreto and Adriàn. Only 4 of the 5 people in fam Barreto got baptized. We're not exactly sure why, but the mom started throwing out excuses why she couldn't get baptized like, "My leg hurts and it's swollen. I can't get baptized". Basically a bunch of lame excuses. We tried talking to her but she didn't want anything. She even started to get a little mad. We left it at that. She passed the baptismal interview and everything and she said that she wanted to get baptized and everything. Something changed or she's not really ready right now. I'm pretty sure that she's not really sick or anything but she has a hidden problem that we need to discover. We'll keep working with her and try to get her really ready. 

Also along with the baptisms, afterwards some of them shared their testimonies. The one that really stood out to me was Karelis. She's 13 years old but really bright. I imagined her as a future teacher of Sunday School or as teacher of the Investigatos class. She's awesome =). Now the bad. The only bad thing that happened this week was Semana Santa (Easter). It was really hard to find people this week because they're all out of town being drunk, partying and remembering the life of Christ. Basically everything was just more slow this week. A ray of sunshine in our not so great week is that we found 2 new people this week who have accepted a baptismal date. They're friends of Carlos Barreto, a recent convert of 3 weeks and brother of fam Barreto. Through him we've found tons of people. He told us that he has some friends that want us to teach them. Nice. So we did and they accepted baptism. They also said that they would assist this week and I have confidence that they will. 

No I haven't gotten my packages yet. Probably the next week. Changes are this week and there's a pretty good chance that I'm leaving, but you never know. Yes I listened to my music. This morning at 6:30 I got up and listened to all of the music =). Thanks by the way. 

So the pictures. There's a picture of all the baptisms that we had this week. Fam Barreto and Adrian. Good people. And there's me trying to figure out how to eat the leaf package....And there's me finding out that there's food inside! Yeah!!

Funny thing of the week: We were studying in our house and we heard this loud squealing noise outside of our house. A little confused we look out and saw a huge pig. It wasn't very happy. And with reason. Look at the picture in the next email and tell me why you think it wasn't happy. That's right, that stand right there is a meat stand and they butcher pig. The next day the pig wasn't there.....lol. I thought it was funny =)

Nothing else

Meh, 

Elder Black

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  Elder Black  
                                                                                
                Ecuador, Quito Mission                
                           2012-2014                                                        Helaman 5:12                           

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